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Andy Seybold’s Public Safety Advocate, February 15, 2018

Networks with a Purpose. Fixed and wireless networks are all built for a purpose. This might be for a single purpose such as Land Mobile Radio (LMR) public safety systems or it might be for a broader purpose such as cellular networks built to serve a company’s customers be they individuals, businesses, machine-to-machine (Internet of Things, IoT), and other uses. The design of the network, the coverage it provides, and the services enabled to run over the network will differ. Some wireless networks are used to communicate from one continent to another, satellite networks are designed to deliver specific content from one location to another, usually remote locations, and satellite systems for voice and slow-speed data enable people in unpopulated areas, on oil rigs in the gulf, or on ships to communicate via dial-up telephony among other purposes.

This week’s Advocate is about several types of purpose-built networks including Land Mobile Radio (LMR), commercial broadband wireless networks, and the new FirstNet hybrid commercial/public safety system. All three of these networks are currently being used by the public safety community. The LMR systems are purpose-built to cover a specific geographic area such as a city, county, region, and more and more, an entire state. These networks are designed, planned, and built to carry primarily Push-To-Talk (PTT) audio for the public safety community from the dispatch center to the field, from unit to unit, and from group to group. While some LMR networks do handle data, especially compared to wireless broadband, they are very slow and not capable of much more than text services. Read the Entire Post Here

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX, fresh off the successful launch this month of the world’s most powerful rocket, won an endorsement on Wednesday from the top U.S. communications regulator to build a broadband network using satellites.

Musketeers to launch first internet satellites this weekend SpaceX’s plans to become a global ISP took a big step forward after Ajit Pai ” the boss of America’s comms watchdog, the FCC ” gave his blessing for Elon Musk’s biz to pop broadband-beaming satellites into orbit.â€¦

Several times since 2010, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) has recommended that Congress consider eliminating the exemption public power and rural electric cooperative utilities have from FCC regulation of pole attachments under the guise of facilitating broadband …

The LMCC said that this presents a serious risk of harmful interference to federal systems and FCC-compliant systems operated by public safety and business/industrial licensees. The LMCC also advised that the use of noncompliant devices creates significant economic consequences and competitive …

Next big thing 5G and narrowband Internet of Things. Operators have urged the NCC to consider a ‘beauty contest’ rather than an auction for the assignment of 5G spectrum, should cost efficiency be an issue in the policy consideration of 5G fast deployment. The higher rates of frequency use fees in …

Other operators such as Orange, AT&T and KPN are more wedded to LTE-M, an alternative narrowband technology based on 3GPP standards. There will also be news on rival cellular narrowband solutions such as Sigfox and LoRa. Expect plenty of debate over the merits of each, as operators adopt a …

Those waves are kind of like lanes in a pool, and currently, there are some TV and radio station swimmers that wireless broadband companies want to move to different lanes. So, the FCC auctioned portions of the broadcast spectrum in exchange for a different part of the band with T-Mobile, AT&T and …

Capito is a co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Broadband Caucus, which is aimed at promoting the expansion of high-speed internet access to underserved areas. According to the FCC, 31 percent of rural Americans and 35 percent of Americans in tribal areas lack access to broadband, compared to just 2 …